Re: upcoming issues with python-hulahop, python-xpcom, xulrunner-1.9.2
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 06:07:27PM +0000, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> hi folks,
>
> i don't know if you're aware of the ... issues shall we say ...
> surrounding xulrunner 1.9.2 but there's a few changes going on.
> python-xpcom is being *dropped* from xulrunner as a first class
> citizen and is being turned into a third-rate one. this isn't a
> problem right now because debian releases versions of firefox that use
> xulrunner-1.9.1.
>
> the rdepends for python-xpcom include python-hulahop and
> pyjamas-desktop, epiphany-gecko, sugar-web-activity and so on.
> removal of python-xpcom basically screws these projects.
epiphany-gecko is already gone.
> to make matters slightly worse, the mozilla team have dicked with the
> xpcom interface c-code as they focus all-out on speed-speed-speed to
> the absolute pathological exclusion of all else, in an attempt to
> catch up with webkit's increasing mindshare. this decision is
> affecting all the language bindings (such as java-xpcom, python-xpcom
> and so on).
>
> so, right now, the situation is as follows:
>
> * if you upgrade firefox to a version which uses xulrunner-1.9.2,
> python-xpcom and its rdepends go out the window.
>
> * even if you happen to include the third party module
> http://hg.mozilla.org/pyxpcom as it is now known, xulrunner's XPCOM
> code has been been brain-damaged to the extent that several key
> strategic things such as python bindings to XMLHttpRequest will no
> longer work. todd whiteman has very kindly agreed to look at this,
> and to keep up with the brain-damage.
For people interested in more intelligible information than the above
rant, some xpcom exposed interfaces in xulrunner have been "tweaked"
such that they will only work when called from javascript. Such
interfaces thus can't work from other xpcom bindings.
> basically i wanted to appraise people of the situation, because, with
> xulrunner-1.9 being in debian/testing since pyjamas-desktop was added,
> any attempt to follow the mozilla foundation's headless-chicken
> meltdown moments means goodbye epiphany-gecko, sugar-web-activity and
> pyjamas-desktop. and... that would be bad :)
I guess you mean xulrunner-1.9.1. xulrunner-1.9.2 is still in
experimental and will stay there until squeeze is released.
Mike
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